"But I think there is another man," I stammered, surprised at finding my outposts carried so easily.

"You do not mean to say that she is compromised with any man?" almost fiercely.

"I do not know what meaning you attach to that word," for the count's imperfect French was not always intelligible. "There is a young man, the son of a neighbor, who has admired her a long time."

"Oh, he admires her?" with a curl of the exquisite lips, as if to say, "Who does not?"

"But I think she may like him a little."

"Why do you torture me so? Tell me at once that they are betrothed," cried he, pale with concentrated anger.

He thought she had trifled with him, I knew instantly, but quietly said, "I cannot tell you exactly in what relation they stand to each other, but I think Miss St. Clair would if she found an opportunity to speak with you."

"You do not know how I have tried to make opportunities. I go everywhere, hoping to see you, and I have never met you—not once. Won't you ask her to come down to-night?" coaxingly, like a child.

"Not to-night: it is too late."

"I must see Miss St. Clair to-night."

"Impossible."

"I must see Miss St. Clair. Find out for me when I can see her. I will go with you," in a white heat of passion. (We had been alone for some little time.)

I took the arm which he held out, not a little agitated by the excess of emotion which thrilled and quivered through his youthful frame, as he hurried me up the broad stone staircase and along the wide corridors that led to our rooms. What business had I to meddle? How should an old fogy like me know anything of the love-affairs of this generation? The girl would have managed more wisely than I, I reflected, by no means jubilant over the result.

"Wait here;" and I walked on to Miss St. Clair's door, opened it, and there sat Helen in her pretty white wrapper, bathed in the moonlight, serene as a star, as if there were no passionate young heart breaking in waves of anguish at her feet. "Helen, the count is in the corridor, and he will not go till I have told him when you will see him."

"How can I? You must think for me."

A hasty consultation. The count was standing where I had left him: "We shall be at the Sistine Chapel to-morrow at two o'clock."

He bowed and was gone.

I did not sleep well that night. A pretty person I am to take charge of a young girl! I wonder what Mr. St. Clair would think if he knew I had made an appointment for his daughter to meet a young Spaniard? On the way, however, I admonished Helen, as if no misgiving of my own wisdom had ever crossed my mind: "You must be firm with him. Tell him so decidedly that he cannot doubt you really mean it."

"Yes," said she, "but I do dread it so. I can't bear his thinking that I encouraged him."

"Then you did?"

"I didn't mean to, but I do like him; and I didn't think of his taking it so to heart. Men are so strange! You think you have a charming friend, and then they will go on just so, boys and all, and you have to take them or lose them; and you can't take them. It is too bad!"

We were at the door. The keeper opened it, and there stood the count waiting for us. It was not the first time we had been in the wonderful chapel. Fortunately, there were very few persons there on this afternoon—none that we knew. I sat down to look at the grand frescoes: Helen and the count walked on to the farthest corner. I looked at the Cumaean Sibyl, the impersonation of age and wisdom, and wished, as I glanced at the youthful figures talking so earnestly in the distance, but not a murmur of whose voices reached my ear, that she would impart to me her far-reaching vision of futurity. I gazed on the image of the Eternal Father sweeping in majestic flight through the air, bearing the angels on His floating garment as He divides the light from the darkness. I saw Adam, glad with new life, rising from the earth, because the outstretched finger of his Creator gave him a conscious strength. I looked at "The Last Judgment," grown dim with years, till every figure started out in intensity of life, and it seemed as if the faces would haunt me for ever.

And yonder still progressed the old, ever-new drama of love and anguish, with its two actors, who seemed scarcely to have changed their position or taken their eyes from each other. At length they walked slowly toward me with more serenity of aspect than I had dared to hope.

"Shall we go into the picture-gallery?" asked the count.

"I think we may have time to walk through it," I answered. "It is half-past three."

"Is it possible that we have kept you waiting so long?" they asked simultaneously.

"An hour and a half is a short time in a place like the Sistine Chapel," I remarked sententiously.

As soon as we were alone I drew Helen to the confessional: "Did you tell him about Mr. Denham?"

"Yes, everything, and he was so noble. I am so sorry. The tears stood in his eyes, and he said, 'I suffer, but I am a man. I can bear it.' Then he thanked me for dealing so openly with him. He never once hinted a reproach. And I deserved it," she said with unwonted humility. "I never felt before how wicked it is to flirt just a little. He is not selfish, like some people that I know;" and my thought followed hers. "I don't know but I am a little goose to let him go so. If he were only twenty-three years old, and I were free—"

The next day we saw nothing of the count, but early Thursday morning Vincenzo knocked at my door with a note, in which Count Alvala informed me that he was my son, and begged earnestly to see the beautiful Miss St. Clair once more: he would never trouble me again. It was the only day on which we could see the Palace of the Caesars, and would I be so good as to permit him to meet us there? I hastily penciled a few words: "I am waiting for Dr. Valery. I shall probably stay with my sick friend to-day, and Miss St. Clair will not go out without me," and sent the line by Vincenzo, happy to be rid of the importunate boy for this time.

Two hours later, when the doctor had pronounced my friend better, and I had promised Helen a walk amid the ruins of the Palatine, which I did not like to leave Rome without seeing, I went down to the roll, coffee and eggs which constitute an Italian breakfast, and there sat the count as vigilant as a sentinel. "You will go?" said he with a smile.

"I think we may," curtly.

"I shall perhaps meet you there."

When we reached the Farnese gate he was waiting there, which made the "perhaps" superfluous. We had a long ramble over the lonely hill, stretching out like a green New England pasture, but where from time to time we came unexpectedly upon flights of steps which led to massive substructures of stone, foundations of ancient palaces, and to excavated halls paved with mosaics and lined with frescoes more beautiful than those of Pompeii. There were many statues, more or less mutilated, and stately brick arches laden with a wealth of flowering shrubs, and here and there thickets of tall dark cypress trees, harmonious with ruins. My young companions were rather silent, but I fancy their thoughts were not engrossed with old historic lore. I made a conscientious effort to force mine into the ruts of association which I had supposed to be inevitable in such a spot, but the bright sunshine, the delicate blue of the distant Campagna, the living gladness of earth and air were too strong for me, and I inwardly applauded a lively American girl who interrupted her droning guide with the incisive "I don't care a snap for Caesar."

On reaching the gate after our three hours' ramble I consigned Miss St. Clair to some friends who were waiting for her, and stepped into the count's carriage. He seemed to feel bound in honor not to speak of love to Miss St. Clair since the revelation of the Sistine Chapel, but he must have a little solace in talking to me about it. "It would be easy," said he, "if she were not fiancee, but that makes it difficult—very difficult indeed. I am glad it is not going to be for three years: that is a long time, a very long time." Then, with a sudden illumination of face and a delicious intonation of the musical voice, "Perhaps they will never marry: perhaps it will be another man—I." (Blessed infatuation of youth, with its wonderful perhapses, which never come to maturer years!)

"One of these years I shall hope to hear that you are married to a beautiful lady of your own country and your own religion."

"You never will."

"Oh yes, you will be astonished to find how easy it is to forget."

"I come of a constant race," said he proudly. "My father loved my mother, and they sent him all over the world to forget her, but he came home in five years and married her."

"Even if it were otherwise possible (which it is not), the difference in religion ought to prevent it. How could so good a Catholic as you distress your family by marrying a heretic?"

"Perhaps she would be a Catholic." (I noticed that he did not say, "Perhaps I shall become a Protestant.") "Don't you think her father would let her marry a Catholic?"

"No," I replied stoically.

He was silent and dejected.

"You must forget her," said I kindly. "It is only a little while since you first saw her."

"A little while! It is my whole life!" "Only a few weeks," I continued. "We shall soon be across the ocean, and you will see other ladies."

"There is only one Miss St. Clair."

"I beg your pardon—there are three of them." But the boy was too miserable to notice this poor little sally.

We were approaching the hotel. "I shall not see you again at present," said he. "Monsignore will arrive this evening, and I must be at home to receive him. But I shall be in Paris by the middle of May, and I shall see you there: farewell till then."

The next morning Miss St. Clair and I were on our way to Florence. A week later, on our return from the convent of San Marco, where we had seen the cell of Savonarola and many lovely but faded frescoes of Fra Angelico and Fra Bartolommeo, whom should we find waiting for us in our temporary home on the Via Pandolfini but Count Alvala? I felt annoyed, and my face must have revealed it, for he said deprecatingly, "You ought to be glad to see your boy, Madame Fleming, for I have come this long journey only for a day, expressly to see you."

"Well," said I, "you took me so by surprise that I had not my welcome ready. I did not expect the pleasure of seeing you till after our arrival in Paris."

"That is why I am here. I shall not be able to go to Paris. I am bitterly disappointed, but monsignore has made other plans for me. I am to go to Vienna to visit my aunt, whose husband is our ambassador there. The tour to Paris is postponed till the autumn."

Evidently monsignore had heard of the little heretic maiden, and he was going to remove his ward from temptation. I was infinitely obliged to him.

A desultory conversation followed, carried on principally by the young people, and then the count said, "Miss St. Clair tells me that you have visited the Uffizi and Pitti galleries. May I not go with you somewhere to-morrow?—to La Certose or San Miniato, for instance?"

"Thank you," I replied: "we are so exhausted with sight-seeing, Miss St. Clair and I, that we shall stay in all day to-morrow, and we shall be happy to see you once in the afternoon or evening, as may be most convenient for you."

I did not like to be hard and cross to the dear boy whom my heart yearned over, but I felt as much bound to "make an effort" as if I had been a veritable Dombey.

The call lasted afternoon and evening: it was only the change of a particle. I could not reproduce the innocent talk, half gay, half sad, of this long interview, but before he went away the count drew me aside: "Will you give this to Miss St. Clair when I am gone?"

I unfolded the package: it contained a photograph of himself and a small painting which he had executed of the Coliseum on the night of the illumination. "Yes."

"And will you send me her photograph from Paris? I will have it copied by the best miniature-painter in Rome and put in a locket set with diamonds," said the boy enthusiastically.

"I cannot promise."

"Do you think I could be of any use to her father? Not to win his favor, you understand, but I should be so happy to do anything to serve her or her friends. Can't you tell me now?"

"No. Mr. St. Clair does not need assistance in any way that I know."

In spite of the boy's earnestness, the idea of his offering patronage to the mature and independent American struck me as irresistibly ludicrous.

"But you will tell him all about me."

"Yes."

"I shall learn to speak English—I have begun already—and in a year I shall be in America. Will you write your address for me on this card?"

I did so.

"If you ever come to Spain, remember that my house and all that is in it are yours."

"I shall never go to Spain."

"Perhaps you will one day to see Miss St. Clair," looking up in my face with a bright smile of inextinguishable hope. "Good-bye for a year."

A few more days in Florence, a week in Venice, a day or two in Milan, and we bade adieu to Italy. Land of beauty and mystery! when I recall thy many forms of loveliness, the glorious shapes of gods and heroes, serene and passionless in their white majesty of marble, the blessed sweetness of saints and Madonnas shining down into my soul, I seem to have been once in heaven and afterward shut out.

* * * * *

We were once more at home. Almost the first news that came to us from abroad was of the terrible war between France and Germany. During the protracted siege of Paris we were full of anxieties, but at its close we received long letters from Madame Le Fort, giving many details of the sufferings and privations of the siege, sorrowful enough for the most part, but enlivened here and there with touches of the gay French humor that nothing can subdue. There was a lively sketch of a Christmas dinner ingeniously got up of several courses of donkey-meat. At New Year's the choicest gift that a gentleman could make a lady was a piece of wheaten bread. Afterward there was nothing in the house but rice and chocolate bonbons, which they chewed sparingly, a little at a time. But they kept up their courage—they were even gay. Hardships were nothing, but that Paris should be surrendered at last—that was a humiliation which nothing could compensate. Many of the gay dancers whom we had known had fallen in battle, among them, Rene Vergniaud. He was shot in the heart in an engagement with the Prussians in the environs of Paris.

I spent my next summer vacation with Miss St. Clair in Detroit.

"When is Mr. Denham coming home?" I asked one evening when we were alone together.

"I do not know: he does not speak of coming home. I am a little puzzled about Fred. He has written me a great deal lately about a certain Fraeulein Teresa, the daughter of one of his professors, who takes such excellent care of her younger brothers and sisters, and who is such a wonderfully economical, housewifely little body—just a new edition of Werther's Charlotte. I do not think that he really likes her," she continued after musing a little: "he just holds her up as a model for me to copy. I shouldn't wonder if she was only imaginary, to make me feel how far I come short of his ideal. Fred says that he worships the very ground I tread on—slightly hyperbolical and very original, you perceive," with a satirical curve of her pretty lips—"but he never seems half satisfied with me. He ought to know by this time that I must be just my own little self, and not a second-hand imitation of somebody else."

The next day came a letter with a German postmark, which was so eloquent on the subject of Fraeulein Teresa that it elicited the following reply:

"DETROIT, August 5, 1871.

"DEAR FRED: I despair of emulating Fraeulein Teresa's many excellencies. You know what a useless little thing I am. Happily, it is not too late to make another choice. Thinking it may please you, I hereby release you from all your promises to me. We may never be anything more to each other perhaps, but I hope that we shall always be dear friends. I shall never forget that we grew up together, and I wish you all possible happiness.

"Your little friend, HELEN."

In due time this answer came:

"HEIDELBERG, August 27, 1871.

"MISS ST. CLAIR: Your somewhat singular letter of August 5th was duly received. If I believed that you had written it, or ever could or would do anything, with proper deliberation, I should accept your decision at once. But as I have good reason to know your habit of acting from sudden impulses which you afterward regret, I give you three months to reconsider this hasty step.

"I have the honor to be your obedient servant,

"F. A. DENHAM."

Helen held to me the open sheet, with kindling eyes and glowing cheeks: "Three months! I don't need three minutes: I wouldn't change in three centuries. I am so glad to be free!" she cried, sobbing and laughing at the same moment. "He has worried me so—a poor little thing like me!"

The next morning I started on my return to Boston.

Early in October a servant handed me a card bearing the name Francisco Alvala. I had ceased to think of the boy, not having heard a word from him; but here he was, looking very manly, browned with the sun and sea, and beautiful as Endymion when Diana stooped to kiss him and all the green leaves in the white moonshine were tremulous with sympathy.

After the first greeting he asked, "How is Miss St. Clair? and when did you see her last?"

I told him of my recent visit.

"She is not married, then?"

"On the contrary, she is free. The engagement with Mr. Denham has been broken."

"What did I tell you? Did I not say it would be I?" in a burst of triumph.

As a good Boston woman I am chagrined to record that Bunker Hill and all the local lions, which I was at some pains to impress on his memory, did not prove so attractive as the earliest Western train.

Why make a long story of what every one foresees? In the course of the autumn and winter the count made flying visits to Washington, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and even San Francisco, but it was noticeable that the way to all these places lay through Detroit. He spoke English marvelously well now, and so won upon the hearts of Mr. and Mrs. St. Clair that on the 23d of April, being his twenty-first birthday, the marriage of the conde de Alvala and Helen St. Clair was duly celebrated. I could not leave my school to be present at the wedding, but the young couple came to Boston to take leave of me before sailing for Europe. They were radiant with happiness, and I could hardly tell which I loved best, my boy or my girl; but if the Italian had been there to ask if I ever saw a more beautiful couple, I should have answered no with great emphasis.

I will copy Helen's first letter in order to prove that a chateau en Espagne is not always a castle in the air:

"ALVALA, near Toledo, June 20, 1872.

"DEAR MADAME FLEMING: You have heard from mother of our voyage and safe arrival. We are now at home, Francisco and I, if I can ever learn to feel at home in such a grand place, where I can hardly find my way round. It is like one of the old palaces at Rome, the Borghese or Colonna, that we used to admire so much, with vast halls opening into one another, hangings of tapestry and Cordovan leather, marble statues and old paintings—family portraits by Titian and Velasquez, one or two Murillos, and—but I cannot write a catalogue. You must come to see us and the pictures. I am not sure which you will like the best. Francisco is very good to me, and so are all his friends. His sister and her husband were here to welcome us.

"One of the first things we did was to go down the rose-tree walk, along the banks of the Tagus, for more than a mile—white and delicate pink and deep-red roses blossoming above our heads and dropping their petals at our feet all the way. Francisco said he would make my life like that walk among the roses, all sweetness and beauty, but that he cannot tell.

"There is the old cathedral, with a wonderful head of Saint Francis and a whole forest of columns; and when you come we will bribe the sacristan not to lock you in, as they did at St. Roch. I shall never be a Roman Catholic, but I go to mass sometimes, for there is no Protestant service here, and one cannot be quite a heathen where everybody is so devout. What I dislike most is to have a chaplain in the house, walking about in his black petticoat, but of course I never say a word to Francisco.

"By and by we are going to our house in Madrid. Our house in Madrid! does not that sound very strange? It all seems so unreal that I am afraid of waking up and finding it a dream.

"Do, dear Madame Fleming, give up slaving in that old school and come and live with Francisco and me. He says he wishes you would, and it would make everything seem more real if I had you here. Think of it, now. You will, won't you? As ever, your dear child,

"HELEN ALVALA."

This true story suggests a little sermon in two heads: 1st. To all possible and probable lovers: It was not the count's rank or wealth, but the fervor and constancy of ideal love and his whole-souled, exclusive devotion, that won the heart of the American girl. 2d. To all sensible American parents: Do not permit your pretty young daughters to make a tour in Europe unless you are willing to leave them there.

MARY E. BLAIR.



A JAPANESE MARRIAGE IN HIGH LIFE.

In describing a Japanese marriage in high life we do not intend to soar too high. It is not for our alien pen to portray the splendors of such a marriage as that of the princess of Satsuma to Iyesada, the thirteenth Sho-gun of the Tokugawa dynasty, when all Yedo was festal and illuminated for a week. Neither shall we describe that of the imperial princess Kazu, the younger sister of the Mikado, who came up from Kioto to wed the young Sho-gun Iyemochi, and thus to unite the sacred blood of twenty-five centuries of imperial succession with that of the Tokugawas, the proud family that ruled Japan, and dictated even to her emperors, for two hundred and fifty years. We leave the description of those royal nuptials to other pens. Ours aspires only to describe a marriage such as has happened in old Yedo for the thousandth time in the samurai class—the gentry of Japan.

Were you with us in Tokio (the new name of the capital of Japan) we should take you, were you inclined to go, to the place where once stood the mansion of Yamashiro Kan, a high retainer of the prince of Echizen, and a lineal descendant of the great Iyeyasu, the founder of the dynasty of the Sho-guns. Were you to seek for Yamashiro's mansion now, you would not find it, but instead several very vulgar evidences of the Western civilization which is now changing the Land of the Gods into a paradise of beef, bread, butter, milk and machinery. We walked past the old mansion-grounds a few days ago, and lo! we saw a milk-shop and dairy, a butcher's stall, a sewing-machine store, a printing-office, a school in which Japanese boys were learning A, B, C's, a photographer's "studio," a barber-shop with an English sign, and a score or more Japanese shops of all kinds. This is of to-day. Five years ago a long wall of diamond-shaped tiles laid in white cement extended round the spacious grounds of the homestead of the Yamashiro family. Inside were fish-ponds, mimic hills, miniature mountain-scenery, dense flower-bushes, dwarfed arboreal wonders, solemn shade trees and a garden laid out according to the very best Japanese style. The fine old yashiki of Yamashiro, with its porter's lodge, stone path, entrance-porch, vestibule and the family homestead, was within. No wonder, then, that the aged man, who firmly believes that Japan is going to the dogs, the devil or the foreigners—he does not know which—shakes his head as he now passes by the milk-and butcher-shops, around which the lazy dogs sleep or wait for bones, and sighs as he remembers the grand old mansion.

About two miles farther north, in the great rus urba of Yedo, was another house of humbler pretensions, and yet one with a gate and garden of dimensions betokening the residence of a man of rank. It was the home of Nakayama, one of the eighty thousand hatamoto (vassals) of the Sho-gun, a studious gentleman whose greatest pride was in his two sons and his only daughter. The former were not only manly and expert in the use of the sword and spear, but had the best education that the classics of Confucius and the Chinese college and literati in Yedo could give them. Next to them in his love was his only daughter Kiku, seventeen years old, and as fair as the fairest of Yedo's many fair daughters. No vain doll was Kiku, but, inheriting her mother's beauty, she added to it the inner grace of a meek and dutiful spirit. Besides being deft at household duties, her memory was well stored with the knowledge of Japanese history and the Chinese classics. She had committed to memory the entire books of the Woman's Great Learning, and had read carefully five other works on etiquette and morals which her father had presented to her on successive birthdays. Kiku was a remarkably well-educated maiden, and would have been a prize for the richest daimio in the empire.

Faithfully following Japanese etiquette, Kiku had been carefully kept from the company of any of the male sex since her eighth year. She never talked with any young man except her brothers. Occasionally at family parties she was addressed by her uncles or cousins. Sometimes, when gentlemen called to see her father, Kiku would bring tea to the guest, and was thus made the subject of compliments; but as to "receiving" male company, she never did it. Kiku never went out unless accompanied by her mother or the maid, who was like her shadow.

The gods of Japan meet together at the great temples in Ise during the eleventh month and tie all the nuptial knots for the following year. Kiku's marriage-knot had been tied by the gods six months before she even suspected the strings had been crossed. How happened it?

In Japan only the people in the lower classes are acquainted with and see each other frequently before marriage. The business of selection, betrothal and marriage is attended to by the parents or friends of the pair, who carry on negotiations by means of a third factor, a middleman or go-between. Children are often betrothed at birth or when on their nurses' backs (there are no cradles in Japan). Of course the natural results, mutual dislike and severance of the engagement at mature age, or love and happy marriage, or marriage, mutual dislike and subsequent divorce, happen, as the case may be. In general, when the parents make the betrothal of grown-up children, it is not probable that the feelings of son or daughter are outraged, or that marriages are forced against the consent of either, though this does sometimes take place. In Asiatic countries, where obedience to parents is the first and last duty, and in which no higher religion than filial obedience exists, the betrothal and marriage of children is not looked upon as anything strange. The prevalence of concubinage as a recognized institution in Japan makes it of no serious importance whether the husband loves his wife or not.

To tell an ordinary Japanese that in America people often marry against their parents' consent is to puzzle him, and make him believe Carlyle's saying about Americans without having heard it. If a man who marries against his parents' wish is not a triple-dyed ingrate, he must be a downright fool. Beyond this idea the normal Japanese cannot go; and you might as well try to make a blind man understand that "celestial rosy red" was "Love's proper hue" as to convince him that a good man ever marries against his parents' wishes. Such ideas and practices are convincing evidences to him of the vast moral inferiority of Western nations when compared with that of the people descended from the gods.

Resuming our narrative, we must mention that Kiku's father had once had an offer from one Matsui, a wealthy retainer of the Wakasa clan, through that young nobleman's middleman or agent, which he refused, to the disgust of both middleman and suitor. The latter had seen Kiku walking with her mother while going to the temple at Shiba, and, being struck with her beauty, inquired who she was. Having come of age and wishing a wife, he had sued for Kiku to her father, who, for reasons of his own, refused the request, on the ground that Kiku was too young, being then but fifteen years old. The truth was, that the Wakasa samurai was a wild young fellow, and bore a reputation for riotous living that did not promise to make him a proper life-companion for Nakayama's refined and cultured daughter. Between Nakayama, Kiku's father, and Yamashiro, the retainer of the Echizen clan, whose home we spoke of in the opening of our sketch, had long existed a warm friendship and a mutual high regard. Yamashiro, though more fond of society and good living than Nakayama, was nevertheless, like him, a high-spirited and well-read man. He had four children, two sons and two daughters. The oldest son, named Taro, was now twenty years old, of manly figure, diligent in study, and had lately acted as a high page, attending daily upon the person of Hitotsu-bashi, the then reigning Sho-gun, and the last of his line that held or will hold regal power in Japan. Taro, being the oldest son of his father, was the heir to his house, office, rank and revenue. Taro wanted a wife. He wished to taste the sweets of love and wedded joy. He had long thought of Kiku. Of course he asked his father, and his father "was willing." He told Taro to go to Nakayama's house. Taro went. He talked to Nakayama, and hinted faint compliments of his daughter. It was enough. Nakayama was keen of scent, and he also "was willing." Clapping his hands, the maid-servant appeared and falling down and bowing her head to the floor, listened: "Make some tea, and tell Miss Kiku to serve it."

Had you been in the back rooms of that house, you would have seen Kiku blush as the maid told her who was in the front room and what her father had said. Her heart beat furiously, and the carnation of health upon her cheeks was lost in the hot blushes that mantled her face and beautiful neck when her mother, reproving her, said, "Why, dear child, don't be excited: perhaps he has come only on some every-day business, after all. Be composed, and get ready to take in the tea."

Nevertheless, Kiku took out her metal mirror while the maid made the tea, smoothed a pretended stray hair, powdered her neck slightly, drew her robe more tightly around her waist, adjusted her girdle, which did not need any adjusting, and then, taking up the tray, containing a tiny tea-pot, a half dozen upturned cups, and as many brass sockets for them, hastened into the front room, bowed with her face on her hands to the floor, and then handed cups of tea to her parent and his guest. This done, she returned to her mother. Whether Taro looked at Kiku's cheeks or into her glittering black eyes we leave even a foreign reader to judge.

Let it not be thought, however, that a single word relating to marriage in the concrete passed between the two men: no such breach of etiquette was committed. The visit over, the two friends parted as friends, and nothing more, either in fact or in visible prospect.

But, to be brief, not long afterward, Taro, having selected a trusty friend, sent him as a go-between to ask of Nakayama the hand of his daughter in marriage. The proposal was accepted, and when the go-between came the second time to Kiku's home it was in company with two servants bearing bundles. These, being opened, were found to contain a splendidly embroidered girdle, such as Japanese ladies wear, about twelve feet long and a foot wide when doubled; a robe of the finest white silk from the famous looms of Kanazawa; five or six pieces of silk not made up; several kegs of sake or rice-beer; dried fish, soy, etc. These were for the bride-elect. For her father was a sword with a richly mounted hilt and lacquered scabbard, hung with silken cords. The blade alone of the sword was worth (it isn't polite to speak of the cost of presents, but we will let you into the secret, good reader) one hundred dollars, and had been made in Sagami from the finest native steel. Kiku's mother was presented with a rich robe, which she recognized at once as being woven of the famous Derva silk. The ceremonious reception of these presents by the parents signified that the betrothal was solemnly ratified, and that the engagement could not be broken. Nakayama, the intended father-in-law, afterward sent to Taro a present of a jar of the finest tea from his own plantation in Shimosa, a pair of swords, and a piece of satin, such as that of which the hakama or trousers which indicate the rank of the samurai are made.

The betrothal was now published in both families, and in both houses there were festivities, rejoicing and congratulation. The marriage-day, a fortunate or good-omened one, was fixed upon as the twenty-seventh from the day of betrothal.

Was Kiku happy? Nay, you should ask, Can that word express her feelings? She had obeyed her parents: she could do nothing higher or more fraught with happiness. She was to be a wife—woman's highest honor and a Japanese woman's only aim. She was to marry a noble by name, nature and achievement, with health, family, wealth and honor. Kiku lived in a new world of anticipation and of vision, the gate of which the Japanese call iro, and we love. At times, as she tried on for the twentieth time her white silk robe and costly girdle, she fell into a reverie, half sad and half joyful. She thought of leaving her mother alone with no daughter, and then Kiku's bright eyes dimmed and her bosom heaved. Then she thought of living in a new home, in a new house, with new faces. What if her mother-in-law should be severe or jealous? Kiku's cheek paled. What if Taro should achieve some great exploit, and she share his joy as did the honorable women of old? What if his former position of beloved page to the Sho-gun should give her occasional access to the highest ladies in the land, the female courtiers of the castle? Her eyes flashed.

The wedding-night came, seeming to descend out of the starry heavens from the gods. Marriages rarely take place in the daytime in Japan. The solemn and joyful hour of evening, usually about nine o'clock, is the time for marriage—as it often is for burial—in Japan. In the starlight of a June evening the bride set forth on her journey to her intended husband's home, as is the invariable custom. Her toilet finished, she stepped out of her childhood's home to take her place in the norimono or palanquin which, borne on the shoulders of four men, was to convey her to her future home.

Just as Kiku stands in the vestibule of her father's house let us photograph her for you. A slender maiden of seventeen, with cheeks of carnation; eyes that shine under lids not so broadly open as the Caucasian maiden's, but black and sparkling; very small hands with tapering fingers, and very small feet encased in white mitten-socks; her black hair glossy as polished jet, dressed in the style betokening virginity, and decked with a garland of blossoms. Her robe of pure white silk folds over her bosom from right to left, and is bound at the waist by the gold-embroidered girdle, which is supported by a lesser band of scarlet silken crape, and is tied into huge loops behind. The skirt of the dress sweeps in a trail. Her under-dress is of the finest and softest white silk. In her hands she carries a half-moon-shaped cap or veil of floss silk. Its use we shall see hereafter. She salutes her cousin, who, clad in ceremonial dress with his ever-present two swords, is waiting to accompany her in addition to her family servants and bearers, and steps into the norimono.

The four bearers, the servants and the samurai pass down along the beautiful Kanda River, whose waters mirror the stars, and whose depths of shade re-echo to the gurgling of sculls, the rolling of ripples and the songs of revelers. The cortege enters one of the gate-towers of the old city-walls, passes beneath the shade of its ponderous copper-clad portals, and soon arrives at the main entrance of the Yamashiro yashiki. Here they find the street in front and the stone walk covered with matting, and a friend of Taro's, in full dress, waiting to receive the cortege. Of course the gazers of the neighborhood are waiting respectfully in crowds to catch a glimpse of the coming bride.

The go-between and a few friends of the bridegroom come out to receive the bride and deliver her to her own servant and two of her own young maiden friends, who had gone before to the Yamashiro mansion. The room in which the families of the bride and groom and their immediate friends are waiting, though guiltless of "furniture," as all Japanese rooms are, is yet resplendent with gilt-paper screens, bronzes, tiny lacquered tables and the Japanese nuptial emblems. On the wall hang three pictured scrolls of the gods of Long Life, of Wealth and of Happiness. On a little low table stands a dwarf pine tree, bifurcated, and beneath it are an old man and an old woman. Long life, a green old age, changeless constancy of love and the union of two hearts are symbolized by this evergreen. In the tokonoma (or large raised recess) of the room are the preparations for the feast, the wine-service consisting of kettles, decanters and cups. On two other tables are a pair of white storks and a fringed tortoise. All through the rooms gorgeously painted wax candles burn. The air of the apartment is heavy with perfume from the censer, a representation in bronze of an ancient hero riding upon a bullock. All the guests are seated a la Japonaise—upon the floor. Two or three young ladies, the bridesmaids, go out to meet the bride and lead her to her dressing-room. Here she finds her own property, which has been brought to her future home during the day. Toilet-stands and cabinets and the ceremonial towel-rack are prominently displayed. On a tall clothes-horse of gilt lacquer are hung her silk robes and the other articles of her wardrobe, which are bridal gifts. Over the doorway, in a gilt rack, glitters the long spear or halberd to the dexterous use of which all Japanese ladies of good family are trained. In a box of finest wood, shining with lacquer and adorned with her family crest, are the silk sleeping-dresses and coverlets, which are to be spread, as all Japanese beds are, on the floor. The articles above mentioned constitute the trousseau of a Japanese bride.

Here Kiku rearranges her dress, retouches her lower lip with golden paint and puts on her hood of floss silk. This is of a half-moon shape, completely covering her face. She does not lift it until she has drunk the sacramental marriage-cup. Many a Japanese maiden has seen her lord for the first time as she lifted her silken hood. Kiku is all ready, and she and the groom are led into the room where the ceremony is to be performed, and assigned their positions.

With a Japanese marriage neither religion nor the Church has anything to do. At the wedding no robed priest appears officially among the guests. The marriage is simply a civil and social contract. In place of our bans is the acceptance of the suitor's presents by the family of the sought, the announced betrothal and intimation of the marriage to the police of the ward. In place of our answer, "Yes," is the sacramental drinking of wine. We may say "wine," because we are talking of high life, and must use high words. Sake, the universal spirituous beverage of Japan, is made from fermented rice, and hence is properly rice-beer. It looks like pale sherry, and has a taste which is peculiarly its own. Sweet sake is very delicious, and it may be bought in all the degrees of strength and of all flavors and prices. As the Japanese always drink their wine hot, a copper kettle for heating sake is a necessity in every household. On ceremonial occasions, such as marriages, the sake-kettles are of the costliest and handsomest kind, being beautifully lacquered. Bride and groom being ready, the wine-kettles, cups and two bottles are handed down. Two pretty servant-maids now bring in a hot kettle of wine and fill the bottles. To one bottle is fastened by a silken cord a male butterfly, and to the other a female. The two girls also are called "male" and "female" butterflies. The girl having the female butterfly pours out some sake in the kettle, into which the girl with the male butterfly also pours the contents of her bottle, so that the wine from both bottles thus flows together. Then the sake is poured again into another gilt-and-lacquered bottle of different shape.

Now the real ceremony begins. On a little stand three cups, each slightly concave and having an under-rest or foot about half an inch high, are set one upon another, like a pagoda. The stand with this three-storied arrangement is handed to the bride. Holding it in both hands while the sake is poured into it by the male butterfly, the bride lifts the cup, sips from it three times, and the tower of cups is then passed to the bridegroom and refilled. He likewise drinks three times, and puts the empty cup under the third. The bride again sips thrice from the upper cup. The groom does the same, and places the empty cup beneath the second. Again the bride sips three times, and the bridegroom does the same, and they are man and wife: they are married. This ceremony is called san-san-ku-do, or "three times three are nine."

Like a wedding at once auspicious and distingue, the nuptials of Kiku and Taro passed off without one misstep or incident of ill omen. In the dressing-room and in the hall of ceremony Kiku's self-possessed demeanor was admired by all. After drinking the sacramental wine she lifted her silken hood, not too swiftly or nervously, and smiled blushingly on her lord. The marriage ceremony over, both bride and groom retired to their respective dressing-rooms. Kiku exchanged her white dress for one of more elaborate design and of a lavender color. The groom, removing his stiffly-starched ceremonial robes, appeared in ordinary dress. Meanwhile refreshments had been served to all the bridesmaids and, maid-servants. Husband and wife now took their seats again, and the whole company joined in the supper, during which apparently innumerable courses were served. Neither ices, oranges nor black-cake appeared on the table at Kiku's wedding. The bill of fare contained many decidedly recherche items which it requires a Japanese palate thoroughly to appreciate. Let us enumerate a few. There were salmon from Hakodate, tea from Uji, young rice from Higo, pheasants' eggs, fried cuttle-fish, tai, koi, maguro and many another sort of toothsome fish from the market at Nihon Bashi. There were sea-weed of various sorts and from many coasts, bean-curd, many kinds of fish-soups, condiments of various flavors, eggs in every style and shellfish of every shape. A huge maguro-fish, thinly sliced, but perfectly raw, was the piece de resistance of the feast. Sweetmeats, candies of the sort known to the Japanese confectioners and castera (sponge-cake) crowned the courses.

Now, having briefly described Kiku's wedding, perhaps we should stop here. Although fairly married, however, Kiku was not through the ceremonies of the night. Before her own parents left the house she was taken by the attendant ladies before her parents-in-law, and with them drank cups of wine and exchanged gifts. All the bridal presents were displayed during the evening in her dressing-room, and the whole of her trousseau was open to the inspection of all the ladies present. Feasting and dancing were the order of the hours until midnight, and then Kiku's parents bade her farewell, and she was left a bride in a new home.

"Where did the young couple go?" "What was the route of their bridal-tour?" "Perhaps they made a late wedding-journey?" "Of course Japan has many fine watering-places to which married couples resort?" These are American questions. The fashion of making bridal-tours is not Japanese. Many a lovely spot might serve for such a purpose in everywhere beautiful Japan. The lake and mountains of Hakone; the peerless scenery, trees, waterfalls and tombs of Nikko, where sleeps the mighty Iyeyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa line; the spas of Atami,—all these are spots which if in America would be thronged with bridal-parties. Caucasians in Japan even make Fusiyama's summit the goal of their wedded steps, but our Kiku and Taro went nowhere.

"At home" for three days is the general rule in Japan. All their friends came to see them, and presents were showered on the happy pair. The great Sho-gun, remembering his former page, sent Taro a present of a flawless ball of pure rock-crystal five inches in diameter. Prince Echizen, his feudal lord, presented him with a splendid saddle with gilt flaps and a pair of steel stirrups inlaid with gold and silver and bronze, with the crest of the Echizen clan glittering in silver upon it. From his own father he received a jet-black horse brought from the province of Nambu, and an equine descendant of the Arab sire presented by the viceroy of India to the Japanese embassy to the pope in 1589. On the delightful wonders of the gifts to Kiku our masculine pen shrinks from expatiating. On the third day after her marriage Kiku visited her parents, and after that spent many days in returning the visits of all who had called on her.

Now, like the "goosie gander" of nursery memory, we must wander again into the lady's chamber. Were you to wander to such a place after a Japanese maiden became a wife, you would see, as we have often seen, how the outward form of a Japanese maiden assumes that of a Japanese matron. First, then, the maiden wears a high coiffure that always serves as a sacred symbol of her virginity. It is not easy to describe its form, but even foreigners think it very beautiful, and will regret the day when the Japanese musume wears her hair like her sisters across the ocean. Indeed, it would be no strange thing were Queen Fashion to ordain that American maidens should adopt the style of dressing the hair now in universal vogue in Japan. The shimada or virginal coiffure, however, is changed after marriage, and Kiku, like the rest of her wedded friends, now wore the maru-mage, or half-moon-shaped chignon, which is wound round an ivory, tortoise-shell or coral-tipped bar, and is the distinguishing mark of a Japanese wife. So far, however, the transition from loveliness to ugliness has not been very startling: Kiku still looked pretty. The second process, however, robbed her of her eyebrows, and left her without those dark arches that had helped to make the radiant sun of her once maidenly beauty. With tweezers and razor the fell work, after many a wince, was done. With denuded brows and changed coiffure surely the Japanese Hymen demands no more sacrifices at his shrine? Surely Kiku can still keep the treasures of a set of teeth that seem like a casket of pearls with borders of coral? Not so. The fashion of all good society from remotest antiquity demands that the teeth of a wife must be dyed black. Kiku joyfully applied the galls and iron, and by patience and dint of polishing soon had a set of teeth as black as jet and as polished as the best Whitby. Not strange to tell to a Japanese, either, the smile of her husband Taro was a rich reward for her trouble and the surrender of her maiden charms. Japanese husbands never kiss their wives: kissing is an art unknown in Japan. It is even doubtful whether the language has a word signifying a kiss. No wonder Young Japan wishes to change his language for the English! Henceforth in public or private, alone or in company, Kiku's personal and social safety was as secure as if clothed in armor of proof and attended by an army. The black teeth, maru-mage and shaven eyebrows constitute a talisman of safety in a land which foreigners so like to believe licentious and corrupt beyond the bounds of conception.

Now that we have Kiku married, we must leave her to glide into the cool, sequestered paths of a Japanese married lady's life. Only one thing we regret, and that is that her marriage could not have happened in the year of our Lord 1874 and of "Enlightened Peace the seventh, and of the era of Jimmu, the first Mikado, the two thousand five hundred and thirty-fourth." Had she been married during the present year, her coiffure would need no alteration, her eyebrows would still knit with care or arch with mirth, and her teeth would still keep their virgin whiteness, unsoiled by astringent galls or abhorred vitriol.

The leader of feminine fashion in Japan, the young empress Haruko, has set her subjects the example by for ever banishing the galls and iron, appearing even in public with her teeth as Nature made them. Kiku and Taro, though once proud to own allegiance to the Sho-gun, are now among the staunch supporters of the lord of the Sho-gun, the Mikado, the only true sovereign of the Sunrise Kingdom.

W.E. GRIFFIS.



THE LOST BABY.

She wandered off one dismal day; No one was by to bid her stay: The earth was white, the sky was gray, When the poor little baby wandered away.

The sun went down with crimson crown Behind the clouds and the tree-tops brown: The cold road stared with a colder frown When the poor little feet went wandering down.

Her mother lived up in the shining sky, Thought poor little baby, wondering why, As hours and days and weeks went by, She never came down at her baby's cry.

If the crimson wave in the west led true, The skyward road she surely knew: She heeded not that the sharp winds blew, Or her cold little feet sore tired grew.

She hummed some broken baby song, And talked to herself as she trudged along: She feared no failure, recked no wrong, But she thought that the way was lone and long.

Tired and cold, she lingered to rest Under a snow-drift's treacherous crest: She cuddled herself in a tiny nest, White and cold as her mother's breast.

They found her there on the snowy ground, Her silky hair with snowflakes crowned. She made no sign, she breathed no sound, But the skyward road she had surely found.

CLARA G. DOLLIVER.



THREE FEATHERS.

BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF "A PRINCESS OF THULE."



CHAPTER XXIII.

SOME OLD SONGS.

"Are you dreaming again, child?" said Mrs. Rosewarne to her daughter. "You are not a fit companion for a sick woman, who is herself dull enough. Why do you always look so sad when you look at the sea, Wenna?"

The wan-faced, beautiful-eyed woman lay on a sofa, a book beside her. She had been chatting in a bright, rapid, desultory fashion about the book and a dozen other things—amusing herself really by a continual stream of playful talk—until she perceived that the girl's fancies were far away. Then she stopped suddenly, with this expression of petulant but good-natured disappointment.

"Oh, I beg your pardon, mother," said Wenna, who was seated at an open window fronting the bay. "What did you say? Why does the sea make one sad? I don't know. One feels less at home here than out on the rocks at Eglosilyan: perhaps that is it. Or the place is so beautiful that it almost makes you cry. I don't know."

And indeed Penzance Bay on this still, clear morning was beautiful enough to attract wistful eyes and call up vague and distant fancies. The cloudless sky was intensely dark in its blue: one had a notion that the unseen sun was overhead and shining vertically down. The still plain of water—so clear that the shingle could be seen through it a long way out—had no decisive color, but the fishing smacks lying out there were jet-black points in the bewildering glare. The sunlight did not seem to be in the sky, in the air or on the sea; but when you turned to the southern arm of the bay, where the low line of green hills ran out into the water, there you could see the strong clear light shining—shining on the green fields and on the sharp black lines of hedges, on that bit of gray old town with its cottage-gardens and its sea-wall, and on the line of dark rock that formed the point of the promontory. On the other side of the bay the eye followed the curve of the level shores until it caught sight of St. Michael's Mount rising palely from the water, its sunlit grays and purple shadows softened by the cool distance. Then beyond that again, on the verge of the far horizon, lay the long and narrow line of the Lizard, half lost in a silver haze. For the rest, a cool wind went this way and that through Mrs. Rosewarne's room, stirring the curtains. There was an odor of the sea in the air. It was a day for dreaming perhaps, but not for the gloom begotten of languor and an indolent pulse.

"Oh, mother! oh, mother!" Wenna cried suddenly, with a quick flush of color to her cheeks, "do you know who is coming along? Can you see? It is Mr. Trelyon, and he is looking at all the houses: I know he is looking for us."

"Child! child!" said the mother. "How should Mr. Trelyon know we are here?"

"Because I told him," Wenna said simply and hurriedly. "Mother, may I wave a handkerchief to him? Won't you come and see him? he seems so much more manly in this strange place; and how brave and handsome he looks!"

"Wenna!" her mother said severely.

The girl did not wave a handkerchief, it is true, but she knelt down at the open bay-window, so that he must needs see her; and sure enough he did. Off went his hat in a minute, a bright look of recognition leapt to his eyes, and he crossed the street.

Then Wenna turned, all in a flutter of delight, and quite unconscious of the color in her face: "Are you vexed, mother? Mayn't I be glad to see him? Why, when I know that he will brighten up your spirits better than a dozen doctors? One feels quite happy and hopeful whenever he comes into the room. Mother, you won't have to complain of dullness if Mr. Trelyon comes to see you. And why doesn't the girl send him up at once?"

Wenna was standing at the open door to receive him when he came up stairs: she had wholly forgotten the embarrassment of their last parting.

"I thought I should find you out," he said when he came into the room, and it was clear that there was little embarrassment about him; "and I know how your mother likes to be teased and worried. You've got a nice place here, Mrs. Rosewarne; and what splendid weather you've brought with you!"

"Yes," said Wenna, her whole face lit up with a shy gladness, "haven't we? And did you ever see the bay looking more beautiful? It is enough to make you laugh and clap your hands out of mere delight to see everything so lovely and fresh."

"A few minutes ago I thought you were nearly crying over it," said the mother with a smile, but Miss Wenna took no heed of the reproof. She would have Mr. Trelyon help himself to a tumbler of claret and water. She fetched out from some mysterious lodging-house recess an ornamented tin can of biscuits. She accused herself of being the dullest companion in the world, and indirectly hinted that he might have pity on her mamma and stay to luncheon with them.

"Well, it's very odd," he said, telling a lie with great simplicity of purpose, "but I had arranged to drive to the Land's End for luncheon—to the inn there, you know. I suppose it wouldn't—Do you think, Mrs. Rosewarne—would it be convenient for you to come for a drive so far?"

"Oh, it would be the very best thing in the world for her—nothing could be better," said Wenna; and then she added meekly, "if it is not giving you too much trouble, Mr. Trelyon."

He laughed: "Trouble! I'm glad to be of use to anybody; and in this case I shall have all the pleasure on my side. Well, I'm off now to see about the horses. If I come for you in half an hour, will that do?"

As soon as he had left Mrs. Rosewarne turned to her daughter and said to her, gravely enough, "Wenna, one has seldom to talk to you about the proprieties, but really this seems just a little doubtful. Mr. Trelyon may make a friend of you—that is all very well, for you are going to marry a friend of his—but you ought not to expect him to associate with me."

"Mother," said Wenna with hot cheeks, "I wonder how you can suspect him of thinking of such foolish and wicked things. Why, he is the very last man in all the world to do anything that is mean and unkind, or to think about it."

"My dear child, I suspect him of nothing," Mrs. Rosewarne said; "but look at the simple facts of the case. Mr. Trelyon is a very rich gentleman; his family is an old one, greatly honored about here; and if he is so recklessly kind as to offer his acquaintanceship to persons who are altogether in a different sphere of life, we should take care not to abuse his kindness or to let people have occasion to wonder at him. Looking at your marriage and future station, it is perhaps more permissible with you; but as regards myself, I don't very much care, Wenna, to have Mr. Trelyon coming about the house."

"Why, mother, I—I am surprised at you!" Wenna said warmly. "You judge of him by the contemptible things that other people might say of him. Do you think he would care for that? Mr. Trelyon is a man, and like a man he has the courage to choose such friends as he likes; and it is no more to him what money they have or what their position is than the—than the shape of their pocket-handkerchiefs is. Perhaps that is his folly, recklessness—the recklessness of a young man. Perhaps it is. I am not old enough to know how people alter, but I hope I shall never see Mr. Trelyon alter in this respect—never, if he were to live for a hundred years. And—and I am surprised to hear you, of all people, mother, suggest such things of him. What has he done that you should think so meanly of him?"

Wenna was very indignant and hurt. She would have continued further, but that a tremulous movement of her under lip caused her to turn away her head.

"Well, Wenna, you needn't cry about it," her mother said gently. "It is of no great consequence. Of course every one must please himself in choosing his friends; and I quite admit that Mr. Trelyon is not likely to be hindered by anything that any person may say. Don't take it so much to heart, child: go and get on your things, and get back some of the cheerfulness you had while he was here. I will say this for the young man, that he has an extraordinary power of raising your spirits."

"You are a good mother, after all," said Wenna penitently; "and if you come and let me dress you prettily, I shall promise not to scold you again—not till the next time you deserve it."

By the time they drove away from Penzance the forenoon had softened into more beautiful colors. There was a paler blue in the sky and on the sea, and millions of yellow stars twinkled on the ripples. A faint haze had fallen over the bright green hills lying on the south of the bay.

"Life looks worth having on such a day as this," Trelyon said: "doesn't it, Miss Wenna?"

She certainly seemed pleased enough. She drank in the sweet fresh air; she called attention to the pure rare colors of the sea and the green uplands, the coolness of the woods through which they drove, the profuse abundance of wild flowers along the banks; all things around her seemed to have conspired to yield her delight, and a great happiness shone in her eyes. Mr. Trelyon talked mostly to Mrs. Rosewarne, but his eyes rarely wandered away for long from Wenna's pleased and radiant face; and again and again he said to himself, "And if a simple drive on a spring morning can give this child so great a delight, it is not the last that she and I shall have together."

"Mrs. Rosewarne," said he, "I think your daughter has as much need of a holiday as anybody. I don't believe there's a woman or girl in the county works as hard as she does."

"I don't know whether she needs it," said Miss Wenna of herself, "but I know that she enjoys it."

"I know what you'd enjoy a good deal better than merely getting out of sight of your own door for a week or two," said he. "Wouldn't you like to get clear away from England for six months, and go wandering about in all sorts of fine places? Why, I could take such a trip in that time! I should like to see what you'd say to some of the old Dutch towns and their churches, and all that; then Cologne, you know, and a sail up the Rhine to Mainz; then you'd go on to Bale and Geneva, and we'd get you a fine big carriage, with the horses decorated with foxes' and pheasants' tails, to drive you to Chamounix. Then, when you had gone tremulously over the Mer de Glace, and kept your wits about you going down the Mauvais Pas, I don't think you could do better than go on to the Italian lakes—you never saw anything like them, I'll be bound—and Naples and Florence. Would you come back by the Tyrol, and have a turn at Zurich and Lucerne, with a long ramble through the Black Forest in a trap resembling a ramshackle landau?"

"Thank you," said Wenna very cheerfully. "The sketch is delightful, but I am pretty comfortable where I am."

"But this can't last," said he.

"And neither can my holidays," she answered.

"Oh, but they ought to," he retorted vehemently. "You have not half enough amusement in your life: that's my opinion. You slave too much for all those folks about Eglosilyan and their dozens of children. Why, you don't get anything out of life as you ought to. What have you to look forward to? Only the same ceaseless round of working for other people. Don't you think you might let some one else have a turn at that useful but monotonous occupation?"

"But Wenna has something else to look forward to now," her mother reminded him gently; and after that he did not speak for some while.

Fair and blue was the sea that shone all around the land when they got out on the rough moorland near the coast. They drove to the solitary little inn perched over the steep cliffs, and here the horses were put up and luncheon ordered. Would Mrs. Rosewarne venture down to the great rocks at the promontory? No, she would rather stay indoors till the young people returned; and so these two went along the grassy path themselves.

They clambered down the slopes, and went out among the huge blocks of weather-worn granite, many of which were brilliant with gray, green and orange lichens. There was a low and thunderous noise in the air: far below them, calm and fine as the day was, the summer sea dashed and roared into gigantic caverns, while the white foam floated out again on the troubled waves. Could anything have been more magical than the colors of the sea—its luminous greens, its rich purples, its brilliant blues, lying in long swaths on the apparently motionless surface? It was only the seething white beneath their feet and the hoarse thunder along the coast that told of the force of this summer-like sea; and for the rest the picture was light and calm and beautiful; but there the black rocks basked in the sunlight, the big skarts standing here and there on their ledges, not moving a feather. A small steamer was slowly making for the island farther out, where a lighthouse stood. And far away beyond these, on the remote horizon, the Scilly Isles lay like a low bank of yellow fog under the pale-blue skies.

They were very much by themselves out here at the end of the world, and yet they did not seem inclined to talk much. Wenna sat down on the warm grass; her companion perched himself on one of the blocks of granite; they watched the great undulations of the blue water come rolling on to the black rocks and then fall backward seething in foam.

"And what are you thinking about?" said Trelyon to her gently, so that she should not be startled.

"Of nothing at all: I am quite happy," Wenna said frankly. Then she added, "I suppose the worst of a day like this is that a long time after you look back upon it, and it seems so beautiful and far away that it makes you miserable. You think how happy you were once. That is the unfortunate side of being happy."

"Well," said he, "I must say you don't look forward to the future with any great hope if you think the recollection of one bright day will make you wretched."

He came down from his perch and stood beside her. "Why, Wenna," said he, "do you know what you really need? Some one to take you in hand thoroughly, and give you such an abundance of cheerful and pleasant days that you would never think of singling out any one of them. Why shouldn't you have weeks and months of happy idling in bright weather, such as lots of people have who don't deserve them a bit? There's something wrong in your position. You want some one to become your master and compel you to make yourself happy. You won't of yourself study your own comfort: some one else ought to make you."

"And who do you think would care to take so much trouble about me?" she said with a smile, for she attached no serious meaning to this random talk.

Her companion's face flushed somewhat—not with embarrassment, but with the courage of what he was going to say. "I would," he said boldly. "You will say it is none of my business, but I tell you I would give twenty thousand pounds to-morrow if I were allowed to—to get you a whole summer of pleasant holidays."

There was something about the plain-spoken honesty of this avowal that touched her keenly. Wild and impossible as the suggestion was, it told her at least what one person in the world thought of her. She said to him, with her eyes cast down, "I like to hear you speak like that—not for my own sake, but I know there is nothing generous and kindly that you wouldn't do at a mere moment's impulse. But I hope you don't think I have been grumbling over my lot on such a day as this? Oh no: I see too much of other people's way of living to complain of my own. I have every reason to be contented and happy."

"Yes, you're a deal too contented and happy," said he with an impatient shrug. "You want somebody to alter all that, and see that you get more to be contented and happy about."

She rose: he gave her his hand to help her up. But he did not surrender her hand then, for the path up the slope was a deep and difficult one, and she could fairly rely on his strength and sureness of foot.

"But you are not content, Mr. Trelyon," she said. "I always notice that whenever you get to a dangerous place you are never satisfied unless you are putting your life in peril. Wouldn't you like to ride your black horse down the face of this precipice? or wouldn't you like to clamber down blindfold? Why does a man generally seem to be anxious to get rid of his life?"

"Perhaps it ain't of much use to him," he said coolly.

"You ought not to say that," she answered in a low voice.

"Well," he said, "I don't mean to break my neck yet a while; but if I did, who would miss me? I suppose my mother would play half a dozen a day more operas or oratorios, or stuff of that sort, and there would be twenty parsons in the house for one there is at present. And some of the brats about the place would miss an occasional sixpence; which would be better for their health. And Dick—I suppose they'd sell him to some fool of a Londoner, who would pound his knees out in the Park—he would miss me too."

"And these are all," she said, "who would miss you? You are kind to your friends."

"Why, would you?" he said with a stare of surprise; and then, seeing she would not speak, he continued with a laugh, "I like the notion of my making an object of general compassion of myself. Did the poor dear tumble off a rock into the sea? And where was its mother's apron-string? I'm not going to break my neck yet a while, Miss Wenna; so don't you think I'm going to let you off your promise to pay me back for those sewing-machines."

"I have told you, Mr. Trelyon," she said with some dignity, "that we shall pay you back every farthing of the price of them."

He began to whistle in an impertinent manner. He clearly placed no great faith in the financial prospects of that sewing club.

They had some light luncheon in the remote little inn, and Mrs. Rosewarne was pleased to see her ordinarily demure and preoccupied daughter in such high and careless spirits. It was not a splendid banquet. The chamber was not a gorgeous one, for the absence of ornament and the enormous thickness of the walls told of the house being shut up in the winter months and abandoned to the fury of the western gales, when the wild sea came hurling up the face of these steep cliffs and blowing over the land. But they paid little attention to any lack of luxury. There was a beautiful blue sea shining in the distance. The sunlight was falling hotly on the green sward of the rocks outside, but all the same a fresh, cool breeze came blowing in at the open window. They let the time pass easily, with pleasant talk and laughter.

Then they drove leisurely back in the afternoon. They passed along the moorland ways, through rude little villages built of stone and by the outskirts of level and cheerless farms, until they got into the beautiful woods and avenues lying around Penzance. When they came in sight of the broad bay they found that the world had changed its colors since the morning. The sea was of a cold purplish gray, but all around it, on the eastern horizon, there was a band of pale pink in the sky. On the west again, behind Penzance, the warm hues of the sunset were shining behind the black stems of the trees. The broad thoroughfare was mostly in shadow, and the sea was so still that one could hear the footsteps and the voices of the people walking up and down the Parade.

"I suppose I must go now," said the young gentleman when he had seen them safely seated in the small parlor overlooking the bay. But he did not seem anxious to go.

"But why?" Wenna said, rather timidly. "You have no engagement, Mr. Trelyon. Would you care to stay and have dinner with us—such a dinner as we can give you?"

"Well, to tell you the truth, I should like it very much," he said.

Mrs. Rosewarne, a little surprised, and yet glad to see Wenna enjoying herself, regarded the whole affair with a gentle resignation. Wenna had the gas lit and the blinds let down: then, as the evening was rather cool, she had soon a bright fire burning in the grate. She helped to lay the table. She produced such wines as they had. She made sundry visits to the kitchen, and at length the banquet was ready.

What ailed the young man? He seemed beside himself with careless and audacious mirth, and he made Mrs. Rosewarne laugh as she had not laughed for years. It was in vain that Wenna assumed airs to rebuke his rudeness. Nothing was sacred from his impertinence—not even the offended majesty of her face. And at last she gave in too, and could only revenge herself by saying things of him which, the more severe they were, the more he seemed to enjoy. But after dinner she went to the small piano, while her mother took a big easy-chair near the fire, and he sat by the table, looking over some books. There was no more reckless laughter then.

In ancient times—that is to say, in the half-forgotten days of our youth—a species of song existed which exists no more. It was not as the mournful ballads of these days, which seem to record the gloomy utterances of a strange young woman who has wandered into the magic scene in Der Freischuetz, and who mixes up the moanings of her passion with descriptions of the sights, and sounds she there finds around her. It was of quite another stamp. It dealt with a phraseology of sentiment peculiar to itself—a "patter," as it were, which came to be universally recognized in drawing-rooms. It spoke of maidens plighting their troth, of Phyllis enchanting her lover with her varied moods, of marble halls in which true love still remained the same. It apostrophized the shells of ocean; it tenderly described the three great crises of a particular heroine's life by mentioning her head-dress; it told of how the lover of Pretty Jane would have her meet him in the evening. Well, all the world was content to accept this conventional phraseology, and behind the paraphernalia of "enchanted moon-beams" and "fondest glances" and "adoring sighs" perceived and loved the sentiment that could find no simpler utterance. Some of us, hearing the half-forgotten songs again, suddenly forget the odd language, and the old pathos springs up again, as fresh as in the days when our first love had just come home from her boarding-school; while others, who have no old-standing acquaintance with these memorable songs, have somehow got attracted to them by the mere quaintness of their speech and the simplicity of their airs. Master Harry Trelyon was no great critic of music. When Wenna Rosewarne sang that night "She wore a wreath of roses," he fancied he had never listened to anything so pathetic. When she sang "Meet me by moonlight alone," he was delighted with the spirit and half-humorous, half-tender grace of the composition. As she sang "When other lips and other hearts," it seemed to him that there were no songs like the old-fashioned songs, and that the people who wrote those ballads were more frank and simple and touching in their speech than writers now-a-days. Somehow, he began to think of the drawing-rooms of a former generation, and of the pictures of herself his grandmother had drawn for him many a time. Had she a high waist to that white silk dress in which she ran away to Gretna? and did she have ostrich feathers on her head? Anyhow, he entirely believed what she had told him of the men of that generation. They were capable of doing daring things for the sake of a sweetheart. Of course his grandfather had done boldly and well in whirling the girl off to the Scottish borders, for who could tell what might have befallen her among ill-natured relatives and persecuted suitors?

Wenna Rosewarne was singing "We met, 'twas in a crowd, and I thought he would shun me." It is the song of a girl (must one explain so much in these later days?) who is in love with one man, and is induced to marry another: she meets the former, and her heart is filled with shame and anguish and remorse. As Wenna sang the song it seemed to this young man that there was an unusual pathos in her voice; and he was so carried away by the earnestness of her singing that his heart swelled and rose up within him, and he felt himself ready to declare that such should not be her fate. This man who was coming back to marry her—was there no one ready to meet him and challenge his atrocious claim? Then the song ended, and with a sudden disappointment Trelyon recollected that he at least had no business to interfere. What right had he to think of saving her?

He had been idly turning over some volumes on the table. At last he came to a Prayer-book of considerable size and elegance of binding. Carelessly looking at the fly-leaf, he saw that it was a present to Wenna Rosewarne, "with the very dearest love of her sister Mabyn." He passed his hand over the leaves, not noticing what he was doing. Suddenly he saw something which did effectually startle him into attention.

It was a sheet of paper with two slits cut into it at top and bottom. In these a carefully-pressed piece of None-so-pretty had been placed, and just underneath the flower was written in pencil, "From H.T. to W.R., May 2, 18—." He shut the book quickly, as if his fingers had been burned, and then he sat quite silent, with his heart beating fast.

So she had kept the flower he had put in the basket of primroses! It had carried its message, and she still remained his friend!



CHAPTER XXIV.

THE CUT DIRECT.

"Well, mother," Miss Wenna said deliberately after he had gone, "I never did see you so thoroughly enjoy a whole day."

"I was thinking the same about you, Wenna," the mother answered with an amused look.

"That is true enough, mother," the girl confessed in her simple way. "He is so good-natured, so full of spirits and careless, that one gets quite as careless and happy as himself. It is a great comfort, mother, to be with anybody who doesn't watch the meaning of every expression you use: don't you think so? And I hope I wasn't rude: do you think I was rude?"

"Why, child, I don't think you could be rude to a fox that was eating your chickens. You would ask him to take a chair and not hurry himself."

"Well, I must write to Mabyn now," Wenna said with a business-like air, "and thank her for posting me this Prayer-book. I suppose she didn't know I had my small one with me."

She took up the book, for she was sitting on the chair that Harry Trelyon had just vacated. She had no sooner done so than she caught sight of the sheet of paper with the dried flower and the inscription in Mabyn's handwriting. She stared, with something of a look of fear on her face. "Mother," she said in quite an altered voice, "did you notice if Mr. Trelyon was looking at this Prayer-book?"

"I don't know, I'm sure," Mrs. Rosewarne said. "I should think he went over every book on the table."

The girl said nothing, but she took the book in her hand and carried it up to her own room. She stood for a moment irresolute: then she took the sheet of paper with the flowers on it, and tore it in a hundred pieces and threw them into the empty grate. Then she cried a little, as a girl must; and finally went down again and wrote a letter to Mabyn which rather astonished that young lady.

"MY DEAR MABYN" (so the letter ran): I am exceedingly angry with you. I did not think you were capable of such folly: I might call it by a worse name if I thought you really meant what you seem to mean. I have just torn up the worthless scrap of flower you so carefully preserved for me into a thousand pieces; but you will be glad to know that in all probability Mr. Trelyon saw it on the paper, and the initials too which you put there. I cannot tell you how pained and angry I am. If he did place that flower intentionally among the primroses, it was most impertinent of him; but he is often impertinent in joking. What must he think of me that I should seem to have taken this seriously, and treasured up that miserable and horrid piece of weed, and put his initials below it, and the important date? You put thoughts into my head that cover me with shame. I should not be fit to live if I were what you take me to be. If I thought there was another human being in the world who could imagine or suspect what you apparently desire, I would resolve this moment never to see Mr. Trelyon again; and much harm that would do either him or me! But I am too proud to think that any one could imagine such a thing. Nor did I expect that to come from my own sister, who ought to know what my true relations are with regard to Mr. Trelyon. I like him very much, as I told him to his face two days before we left Eglosilyan; and that will show you what our relations are. I think he is a very frank, generous and good young man, and a clever and cheerful companion; and my mother has to-day to thank him for about the pleasantest little trip she has ever enjoyed. But as for your wishing me to preserve a flower that he sent, or that you think he sent to me, why, I feel my face burning at the thought of what you suggest. And what can I say to him now, supposing he has seen it? Can I tell him that my own sister thought such things of me? Perhaps, after all, the simplest way to set matters right will be for me to break off the acquaintance altogether; and that will show him whether I was likely to have treasured up a scrap of London pride in my Prayer-book.

"I am your loving sister,

"WENNA ROSEWARNE."

Meanwhile, Harry Trelyon was walking up and down the almost empty thoroughfare by the side of the sea, the stars overhead shining clearly in the dark night, the dimly-seen waves falling monotonously on the shelving beach. "To keep a flower, that is nothing," he was saying to himself. "All girls do that, no matter who gives it to them. I suppose she has lots more, all with the proper initials and date attached."

It was not an agreeable reflection; he turned to other matters: "If she were to care for me a little bit, would it be mean of me to try to carry her off from that man? Is it possible that he has the same feeling for her that I have? In that case it would be mean. Now, when I think of her, the whole world seems filled with her presence somehow, and everything is changed. When I hear the sea in the morning I think of her, and wonder where she is; when I see a fine day I hope she is enjoying it somewhere; the whole of Penzance has become magical. It is no longer the same town. I used to come to it and never see it in the old days, when one was busy about stables and the pilchard fishing and the reports of the quarries. Now the whole of Penzance has got a sort of charm in it since Wenna Rosewarne has come to it. I look at the houses, and wonder if the people inside know anybody fit to compare with her; and one becomes grateful to the good weather for shining round about her and making her happy. I suppose the weather knows what she deserves."

Then he began to argue the question as to whether it would be fair and honorable to seek to take away from another man the woman who had pledged herself to marry him; and of course an easy and definite decision is sure to be arrived at when counsel on both sides and jury and judges sitting in banco are all one person, who conducts and closes the case as it suits himself. He began by assuming such facts as suited his arguments, and ended by selecting and confirming such arguments as suited himself. Wenna Rosewarne cared nothing for Mr. Roscorla. She would be miserable if she married him: her own sister was continually hinting as much. Mr. Roscorla cared nothing for her except in so far as she might prove a pretty housewife for him. The selfishness that would sacrifice for its own purposes a girl's happiness was of a peculiarly despicable sort which ought to be combated, and deserved no mercy. Therefore, and because of all these things, Harry Trelyon was justified in trying to win Wenna Rosewarne's love.

One by one the people who had been strolling up and down the dark thoroughfare left it: he was almost alone now. He walked along to the house in which the Rosewarnes were. There was no light in any of the windows. But might she not be sitting up there by herself, looking out on the starlit heavens and listening to the waves? He wished to be able to say good-night to her once more.

How soon might she be up and out on the morrow? Early in the morning, when the young day was rising over the gray sea, and the sea-winds coming freshly in as if they were returning from the cold night? If he could but see her at daybreak, with all the world asleep around them, and with only themselves to watch the growing wonders of the dawn, might not he say something to her then that she would not be vexed to hear, and persuade her that a new sort of life lay before her if she would only enter it along with him? That was the notion that he continually dwelt on for self-justification when he happened to take the trouble to justify himself. The crisis of this girl's life was approaching. Other errors might be retrieved—that one, once committed, never. If he could only see her now, this is what he would say: "We can only live but once, Wenna; and this for us two would be life—our only chance of it. Whatever else may happen, that is no matter: let us make sure of this one chance, and face the future together—you full of sweetness and trust, I having plenty of courage for both. We will treat objectors and objections as they may arise—afterward: perhaps they will be prudent and keep out of our way." And indeed he convinced himself that this, and this only, was Wenna Rosewarne's chance of securing happiness for her life, assuming, in a way, that he had love as well as courage sufficient for both.

He was early up next morning and down on the promenade, but the day was not likely to tempt Wenna to come out just then. A gray fog hung over land and sea, the sea itself being a dull, leaden plain. Trelyon walked about, however, talking to everybody, as was his custom; and everybody said the fog would clear and a fine day follow. This, in fact, happened, and still Wenna did not make her appearance. The fog over the sea seemed to separate itself into clouds: there was a dim, yellow light in the breaks. These breaks widened: there was a glimmer of blue. Then on the leaden plain a glare of white light fell, twinkling in innumerable stars on the water. Everything promised a clear, bright day.

As a last resource he thought he would go and get Juliott Penaluna, and persuade that young lady to come and be introduced to the Rosewarnes. At first Miss Penaluna refused point-blank. She asked him how he could expect her to do such a thing. But then her cousin Harry happened to be civil, and indeed kind, in his manner to her, and when he was in one of those moods there was nothing she could refuse him. She went and got ready with an air of resignation on her comely face.

"Mind, Harry, I am not responsible," she said when she came back. "I am afraid I shall get into awful trouble about it."

"And who will interfere?" said the young man, just as if he were looking about for some one anxious to be thrown from the top of the tower on St. Michael's Mount.

"I shall be accused of conniving with you, you know; and I think I am very good-natured to do so much for you, Harry."

"I think you are, Jue: you are a thoroughly good sort of girl when you like to be—that's a fact. And now you will see whether what I have said about Miss Rosewarne is all gammon or not."

"My poor boy, I wouldn't say a word against her for the world. Do I want my head wrenched off? But if any one says anything to me about what I may do to-day, I shall have to tell the truth; and do you know what that is, Harry? I do really believe you are in love with that girl, past all argument; and there never was one of your family who would listen to reason. I know quite well what you will do. If she cares ever so little for you, you will marry her in spite of everybody, and probably against her own wish: if she doesn't care for you, you will revenge yourself on the happy man of her choice, and probably murder him. Well, it isn't my fault. I know what your mother will say."

"Ah, you don't know, Jue, what my mother thinks of her," he said confidently.

"Oh yes, mothers think very well of a girl until they discover that she is going to marry their son."

"Oh, stuff! why the inconsistency—"

"It is the privilege of women to be inconsistent, Harry. Your mother will detest that girl if you try to marry her."

"I don't care."

"Of course not. No man of your family cares for anything that interferes with his own wishes. I suppose there's no use in my trying to show you what a fearful amount of annoyance and trouble you are preparing for yourself?"

"None. I'll take it as it comes: I'm not afraid."

They got down to the promenade; the forenoon was now bright and cheerful; a good many folks had come out to enjoy the sunlight and the cool sea-breeze. Miss Juliott was not at all disinclined to walk there with her handsome cousin, though he had forgotten his gloves and was clearly not paying her very special attention.

"Jue," he said suddenly, "I can see Miss Rosewarne right at the end of this road: can't you?"

"I haven't got the eyes of a hawk, you stupid boy!" his cousin said.

"Oh, but I can recognize her dress a dozen times as far away. These are her pet colors at present—a soft cream-color and black, with bits of dark red. Can you see now?"

"I never saw you pay the least attention before to a lady's dress."

"Because you don't know how she dresses," he said proudly.

She was coming along the Parade all alone.

"Well, it is a pretty dress," Miss Juliott said, "and I like the look of her face, Harry. You can't expect one girl to say any more than that of another girl, can you?"

"This is a very nice way of being able to introduce you," he said. "I suppose you will be able to chaperon each other afterward, when her mother isn't able to go out?"

Wenna was coming quietly along, apparently rather preoccupied. Sometimes she looked out, with her dark, earnest and yet wistful eyes, at the great plain of water quivering in the sunshine: she paid little heed to the people who went by. When at length she did see Harry Trelyon, she was quite near him, and she had just time to glance for a moment at his companion. The next moment—he could not tell how it all happened—she passed him with a slight bow of recognition, courteous enough, but nothing more. There was no especial look of friendliness in her eyes.

He stood there rather bewildered.

"That is about as good as the cut direct, Harry," his cousin said. "Come along—don't stand there."

"Oh, but there's some mistake, Jue," he said.

"A girl never does a thing of that sort by mistake. Either she is vexed with you for walking with me—and that is improbable, for I doubt whether she saw me—or she thinks the ardor of your acquaintance should be moderated; and there I should agree with her. You don't seem so vexed as one might have expected, Harry."

"Vexed!" he said. "Why, can't you tell by that girl's face that she could do nothing capricious or unkind? Of course she has a reason; and I will find it out."



CHAPTER XXV.

NOT THE LAST WORD.

As soon as he could decently leave his cousin at home, he did; and then he walked hastily down to the house in which Mrs. Rosewarne had taken rooms. Miss Rosewarne was not at home, the small maid-servant said. Was Mrs. Rosewarne? Yes; so he would see her.

He went up stairs, never thinking how his deep trouble about so insignificant an incident would strike a third person.

"Mrs. Rosewarne," he said right out, "I want you to tell me if Wenna wishes our acquaintance to end. Has she been speaking to you? Just now she passed me in the street as if she did not wish to see me again."

"Probably," said Mrs. Rosewarne, amused as well as surprised by the young man's impetuosity, "she did not see you then. Wenna often passes people so. Most likely she was thinking about other things, for she had another letter from Jamaica just before she went out."

"Oh, she has had another letter from Jamaica this morning?" Trelyon said, with an angry light appearing in his eyes. "That is it, is it?"

"I don't understand you," Mrs. Rosewarne was saying, when both of them heard Wenna enter below.

"Mrs. Rosewarne," he said with a sudden entreaty in his voice, "would you mind letting me see Wenna alone for a couple of minutes? I want to ask her if she is offended with me: you won't mind, will you?"

"Not in the least," she said, good-naturedly; and then she added, at the door, "Mind, Mr. Trelyon, Wenna is easily hurt. You must speak gently to her."

About a minute afterward Wenna, having laid her hat and shawl aside, came into the room. When she found Trelyon there alone, she almost shrank back, and her face paled somewhat: then she forced herself to go forward and shake hands with him, though her face still wore a frightened and constrained look.